2/14/13

I'm back!
And I can say I survived the blizzard of 2013!
As most of you know, cape cod got hit pretty bad with the blizzard, or was it called storm nemo?
My area got hit hard.
Thankfully we survived it ok with minimal tree damage and house damage, but we lost power for three days.
For three days in 30 degree temperatures during the day and teen temperatures during the night.
You can only imagine how hard that was, mentally and physically.
I can honestly say it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
By day two our inside home temperature was 43 degrees!
Hubby and I would lay in bed at night with 7-8 blankets, fully clothed, listening to the house creak and moan with the declining temps.
We could see our breath inside our home.
We didn't have a fireplace, but we did boil water over the gas stove every three hours.
Granted this is not safe and I don't recommend it to anyone, but we have high ceilings and only did this a few times to raise the temperature up a bit.
On day two and a half with no heat, we looked everywhere for a hotel room--they were snatched up fairly quickly and the waiting list was about three pages long.
The only communication we had was the radio and our iphones with which I got updates via the NStar website that said we had another three days to go until power was completely restored.
You can imagine the freak out factor I had with this news.
I wasn't so worried about us making it in the cold, my biggest fear was our pipes.
It was only a matter of time before the pipes would freeze. We did wrap a few pipes that were closest to the outside walls with clothes and towels, and blocked up the doors and windows with sofa cushions.
During the day we'd go to a local grocery store that was partially open, running on generators and eat whatever they had and use the restrooms to wash up. It was hard to come home to the house at night knowing it would be dark and cold.
There were two homes on our street that had whole-house generators, driving by these homes every night seeing them inside watching TV, using the computer, or cooking away in the kitchen was surreal--strange to say the least. It leaves you desperate in a way; longing for any kind of normalcy---again.
On our third day of no power we decided I would go the next day and stay with friends.
My husband was not leaving the house--under any circumstances. I didn't like this, and had zero say in the matter, but he did have a lot of army training so he was quite familiar with handling extreme conditions and weather.
You know how there are certain moment-like life events that happen to you that you never ever forget?
The time the power came on was in my top five.
We were just coming home for the night, driving down our road, seeing some lights on in houses that we were confused on whether or not those were the ones with the generators--we weren't sure because it all looked different.
Then we drove onto our street, and noticed the entire street was lit up like a christmas tree! When you're used to seeing black and then you see everything illuminated it's quite a change.
I remember screaming the whole way down our street to our house, saying 'oh my god, oh my god....!"
And then we got to our house and it was all black!
I didn't know hubby had turned all the lights off so that when the power did come back on we won't blow a fuse--he forgot this too!
So we both weren't sure if the power was on. Then I remembered that above the garage door is a motion detector light that glows red laser light when there is movement in the driveway which in turn turns on the outside lights. And POOF, the little red laser light started moving as I drove closer to the garage door and the lights on the garage door clicked on!!
I screamed "yes, the power is on!"
I screamed again, opened my truck door and started to get out, forgot to put the truck in park, caught myself and put it in park, got out and ran towards to the gas meter to hear for the sound of hissing to validate my curiosity again of whether the power was truly on. It was-- It was hissing away!
We both ran inside and were almost crying with happiness.
Hubby remembered the vent to the heater was blocked with a 4-5 foot snow drift, he ran around to shovel it out, while I ran around the house in shear happiness, turning on this or that light, and checking the all the heat panels. Finding my cat sitting on one of the floorboard heat panels--how he managed that balance act I'm still not sure, but porr thing he was cold too.
That night taking a hot shower-- well there are no words really for that; how do you describe that?
I mean it had been three days without hot water; your body just does a collective 'sigh' when the hot water hits your back for the first time.
We did lose power again the next day for six hours--what's six hours though when you've been through three days? Nothing.
As of today, thursday, my town still has about less than 100 homes still without power.
These are the places that are farther out from the main grid; homes that lost a lot of power lines and have older power lines/systems.
But thankfully today, thursday was the day that everyone in my town would be restored according to NStar. Happy Valentines Day indeed.
I haven't been cooking or baking for a while, cleanup is first, but I did find a recipe from the archives that I hadn't posted yet.
Happy Valentine's Day!
I know I'm happy--very happy and VERY grateful.
The taste of cookies and cream literally in a cookie. Seriously these are good.
Any type of Oreo will work and flavor-wise you can mix and match too.
Eating the dough is just as tasty too, plus there are no eggs so it's fairly safe.

24 comments:

Thank God you're safe and that's behind you! Wow, what a story. I grew up in rural MN and we'd get blizzards and I've lived through a few but can only imagine how cold it was..without heat and power for days!! The cookies are more than well-deserved!

When you didn't post any snowstorm photos, I suspected you were without power. My sister's in southeastern Connecticut and she was without too. They weren't allowed on the roads so she was pretty confined to her house. Here in eastern Pennsylvania we only got five or six inches of snow. It was just enough to use the snow blower but fortunately not enough to cause problems. Glad you're back.

40 inches here in Hamden CT...5 days of "stuck" with a cranky 11 year old and 6 month old puppy who looked out the door and looked back at me like "are you for real?". Needless to say Nemo set us back weeks of housebreaking but we are back up and running like true New Englanders. Off to find if we have enough Ores to make these for dessert.

oh my gosh, i'm so glad you're back with power!! if only i had a generator to bring to you! i was lucky enough to be out of town for the storm (my friends picked an awesome weekend to get married in key west), but was thinking of you! these cookies? YUM. totally want to shove a few in my face right now :)

So happy to hear your power is back. I can imagine it being one of those life changing moments. I don't know how you made it. I'm freaking out just reading about it. I keep telling my mom we need a generator. These cookies look like a great way to recover. Big cookies rule!

I'm glad you are back just so I can make these cookies. Here in Colorado we've been without power for 5 days as we apparently are on the last line to be fixed. Though it didn't get quite as cold (55 inside) it is a miserable feeling. Lots of candles and got out the camping stuff like the propane burners and lantern.Hope it doesn't happen again for a long while.

Wow, I was out of power for a week with Sandy and although it was cold (my house was in the 50s), we didn't have freezing temperatures and snow! I enjoyed reading this post SO much--it made me so grateful (still) that my community survived Sandy and yes, having the power back on is the best feeling in the world!

about vanilla sugar blog

Unique eats, creative recipes, as simple as possible.What drives me to create? Seeing dishes in restaurants, meals created on TV, recipes in cookbooks/online, and I always think to myself why didn’t they add this or why did they leave out that? Love to question, love to research, and love to learn about combining different flavors and textures in recipes.Recipe creations please email: vanillasugarblog@aol.com